Mayor Rahm Emanuel defends police reform plan

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Monday portrayed a memorandum of agreement to have an independent monitor oversee Chicago Police reform as the next best thing to court oversight opposed by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Emanuel said he’s not backing away from his January commitment to negotiate a court-enforced consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice.

He’s simply recognizing the political reality that Sessions’ decision to review and retreat from police reform agreements nationwide has left the Chicago Police Department on the dance floor without a partner.

“There’s many roads to reform, but they all hit the same destination. The model that we’re looking at — a memo of agreement — is just exactly what Chuck Ramsey did with Washington, D.C. You have an outside monitor, an independent set of eyes, that will help us implement the very principles that we negotiated with the Obama Justice Department,” the mayor said.

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